Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (584 page)

* * * *

Later, Kreton is walking in the hall outside my door, and the tread of his twisted black shoes jars the building like an earthquake. I heard the word
police
as though it were thunder. My dead Ardis, very small and bright, has stepped out of the candle flame, and there is a hairy face coming through the window.

* * * *

T
he old woman closed the notebook. The younger woman, who had been reading over her shoulder, moved to the other side of the small table and seated herself on a cushion, her feet politely positioned so that the soles could not be seen. “He is alive then,” she said.

The older woman remained silent, her gray head bowed over the notebook, which she held in both hands.

“He is certainly imprisoned, or ill; otherwise he would have been in touch with us.” The younger woman paused, smoothing the fabric of her
chador
with her right hand, while the left toyed with the gem simulator she wore on a thin chain. “It is possible that he has already tried, but his letters have miscarried.”

“You think this is his writing?” the older woman asked, opening the notebook at random. When the younger did not answer she added, “Perhaps. Perhaps.”

Afterword

Have you read
The last camel died at noon?
It’s a mystery by Elizabeth Peters, and stars a young and attractive Egyptologist named Amelia Peabody. (Do you think there are no attractive young Egyptologists? I know one.) I love those books, and I love the Victorians who probed Africa when almost nothing was known about it. Sir Samuel Baker, that hero of boys’ stories come to life, the wellborn Englishman who bought his wife at a slave auction, is a hero of mine and always will be.

What about us? Who will probe our ruins? Who will come to Washington as we come to Athens? There are myriad ways to answer these questions. The story you have just read is only one of them.

First published in
Speculative Poetry Review #2
, 1977

DEMENSION
Trumps (21)

Do 1969 1 = 1,22

N = 22-1

Trump (N)

Trump (21)

The Universe
includes by definition all,

That Man has seen since the great fall.

God’s calling card this, upon our silver Disch

On what table? In what house? In what hall?

Trump (20)

The L6a6s6t Judgement
, and my creed betrays,

Unlearnt foreknowledge of those coming days.

The angels come to smite the sea and land,

The anti-Christ for us—and slays.

Trump (19)

The Sun
the dancing children love,

Casts down this radiance from above.

Fusion, fission, no remission;

So small a house, so large a stove.

Trump (18)

The Moon
, stillborn sister of our Earth Pale

Faced observes the living birth.

Soon, soon, the sister’s children come,

to plow and plant that stoney turf.

Trump (17)

The Star
, sky-ruler by default,

Pours out two waters: fresh, and salt.

Naked, bare breasted girl, and (whisper)

Magna Mater of the Old Cult.

Trump (16)

The Falling Tower
smote by God,

Thunders in ruins to the sod.

Master, it needs no wit to read this card.

Master, you must wait his rod.

Trump (15)

The Devil
straddles his searing throne,

With power in his hands alone!

He says,

We have been shown; we have been shown; we have been shown.

Trump (14)

Death
in this deck’s no gibb’ring shade;

But naked peasant with a blade;

Think on that, thou unfought people! and,

Remember whence these cards were made.

Trump (13)

The Hanged Man
hangs by his feet,

Knew you that? His face, so sweet,

Almost a boy’s.

He hangs to bleed. Who waits to eat?

Trump (12)

The Wheel of Fortune
; cause and effect;

God will save his own elect;

The wheel turns until it stops—

The bitch within runs ’til she drops.

Trump (11)

Sworded Justice weighs us men,

Then, sordid weighs us up again.

Were’t not more justice just to slay?

Slaying sans guilt to slay again?

Trump (10)

Fortitude
with hands like laws,

Clamps shut the writhing lion’s jaw;

Ignoring his beseeching eye.

Ignoring his imploring paws.

Trump (9)

Taking two hands in the Tarot game,

Temperance
, with
Time
her other name.

Pouring light into a golden cup.

Watering our wine. Drowning our fame.

Trump (8)

The Hermit
with his lamp and staff,

Treads all alone his lonely path.

He who hath no one,

Know you who he hath?

Trump (7)

The Lovers
mean birth as well as lust,

Read ye that riddle as ye must;

Men from semen, O ye people!

Dust from dust from dust from dust.

Trump (6)

The Chariot
’s a Gypsie car,

And we the happy drivers are,

with whip and reins and endless pains,

So far, so far, so far.

Trump (5)

The Emperor
for worldly power,

To shake and scream a fleeting hour;

To this a bribe, to that a bullet—

Remember, Mater, the
Falling Tower
?

Trump (4)

The Hierophant, The Pope
,
The Priest
;

Today we fast, tomorrow feast.

The bridegroom was with us yesterday;

The Hierophant
remains, at least.

Trump (3)

The Lady Hierophant,
good
Pope Joan
,

Who will not let the truth alone;

A scholar killed her yestereve,

Today she’s sidling towards the throne.

Trump (2)

The Empress
,
Nature
, loving and cruel,

Grim mistress of the one hard school,

Mistress of microbes,

Breaking each tool.

Trump (1)

The Juggler
points both down and up, in mastery of confusion;

First in all the deck stands he, creator of illusion.

Sword, coin, and cup before him lie,

And on his face derision.

Trump (0)

*******
FOOL
*******

errorerrorerrorerror

232323232323232323

* * * *

“Seven American Nights” Copyright © 1978 by Gene Wolfe; first appeared in
Orbit 20
; from THE BEST OF GENE WOLFE; reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

“The Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps” Copyright © 1977, 2005 by Gene Wolfe; first appreared in
Speculative Poetry Review #2
.; from FOR ROSEMARY; reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

(1990– )

Big publishers continued to absorb small and medium publishers in the 1990s. Eventually, when nearly all the smaller publishers were gone, the big publishers began to eat each other, until a few massive global publishing conglomerates owned most of the industry. This consolidation caused some painful contractions among SF publishers, such as when Ace, DAW, and Roc Books all ended up owned by the same publisher, leading to inevitable cutbacks.

Oddly, despite declining sales numbers and smaller incomes for genre writers, the writing quality remained as high as it had ever been. To a certain extent small press publishers began filling in gaps left by the big publishers. More science fiction was being published than ever, by a more diverse talent pool than ever. And even if individual book sales were far lower than they had been a generation before, total sales of SF books continued to grow.

Superstores grew to dominate bookselling, nearly wiping out independent booksellers, only to find themselves becoming increasingly obsolete in the internet age. After a number of fits and starts online bookselling became a major part of the market. Bookstore chains were badly hurt by big box stores undercutting them on best-sellers as well, but that didn’t impact the SF market directly. What did have a major impact on genre fiction was the rise of print-on-demand publishing and electronic publishing, both of them significant benefits to authors with fan followings that weren’t quite big enough to be worth a large publisher’s time.

In a field full of early adopters, science fiction writers and fandom took to the internet in a dramatic way. Almost every SF writer with internet access found their way to the popular GEnie Science Fiction RoundTable of the late 1980s and early 1990s (moderated by writer James D. Macdonald). As the internet grew (and GEnie collapsed amid corporate neglect) SF writers and fans found new homes on the web. From SFF.net to the open source writing of Cory Doctorow to the early embrace of Livejournal and blogging as a marketing and social tool to the way dying magazines migrated online (which mostly didn’t work) and were replaced by online fiction outlets that did, the internet continues to shape genre fiction. Many of my initial conversations with authors for this book took place on FaceBook.

At a time of rapid changes in how books are sold, and a time when even the idea of what a book is seems to be changing, science fiction is both at the forefront of those changes while remaining, paradoxically, very much a genre outside the mainstream.

(1952– )

Somehow, Ayana Abdallah and I have never met face to face. She grew up in Connecticut, but left before I moved there. She got one of her MAs at Temple University, but left just before I arrived. After that she earned a PhD at the University of Iowa and took up the semi-nomadic life of a poet and scholar in African Diaspora literature. Beyond her genre-infused poetry, she made several contributions to this book, including introducing me to Andrea Hairston, writing on black women’s SF, and several long, wonderful conversations about SF and teaching.

In addition to her poetry (which has been collected in
Feeling Fey
) much of Ayana’s recent writing is focused on Octavia Butler’s SF, as in
Africentric Transgressive Creativity: A Reader’s Meditation on Octavia Butler
.

“Shadow Catcher” appears here for the first time. It responds to the novel
Free Enterprise
, a lyrical but sometimes despairing account of the life, work, and relationships of black women involved in the slave abolition movement.